Part 7

104. From the sun also, is the only answer, I suppose, possible to physical science. It is not a false answer: quite true, like the other, up to a certain point. To-day, in the strength of your youth, you may know what it is to have the power of the sun taken out of your arms and legs. But when you are old, you will know what it is to have the power of the sun taken out of your minds also. Such a thing may happen to you, sometimes, even now; but it will continually happen to you when you are my age. You will no more, then, think over a matter to any good purpose after twelve o'clock in the day. It may be possible to think over, and, much more, to talk over, matters, to little, or to bad, purpose after twelve o'clock in the day. The members of your national legislature do their work, we know, by gaslight; but you don't suppose the power of the sun is in any of _their_ devices? Quite seriously, all the vital functions,--and, like the rest and with the rest, the pure and wholesome faculties of the brain,--rise and set with the sun: your digestion and intellect are alike dependent on its beams; your thoughts, like your blood, flow from the force of it, in all scientific accuracy and necessity. Sol illuminatio nostra est; Sol salus nostra; Sol sapientia nostra.

And it is the final act and outcome of lowest national atheism, since it cannot deny the sun, at least to strive to do without it; to blast the day in heaven with smoke, and prolong the dance, and the council, by night, with tapers, until at last, rejoicing--Dixit insipiens in corde suo, non est Sol.

105. Well, the sliding of the serpent, and the device of the serpent, we admit, come from the sun. The flight of the dove, and its harmlessness,--do they also?

The flight,--yes, assuredly. The Innocence?--It is a new question. How of that? Between movement and non-movement--nay, between sense and non-sense--the difference rests, we say, in the power of Apollo; but between malice and innocence, where shall we find the root of _that_ distinction?

106. Have you ever considered how much literal truth there is in the words--"The light of the body is the eye. If, therefore, thine eye be evil"--and the rest? How _can_ the eye be evil? How, if evil, can it fill the whole body with darkness?

What is the meaning of having one's body _full_ of darkness? It cannot mean merely being blind. Blind, you may fall in a ditch if you move; but you may be well, if at rest. But to be evil-eyed, is not that worse than to have no eyes? and instead of being only in darkness, to have darkness in _us_, portable, perfect, and eternal?

107. Well, in order to get at the meaning we may, indeed, now appeal to physical science, and ask her to help us. How many manner of eyes are there? You physical-science students should be able to tell us painters that. We only know, in a vague way, the external aspect and expression of eyes. We see, as we try to draw the endlessly-grotesque creatures about us, what infinite variety of instruments they have; but you know, far better than we do, how those instruments are constructed and directed. You know how some play in their sockets with independent revolution,--project into near-sightedness on pyramids of bone,--are brandished at the points of horns,--studded over backs and shoulders,--thrust at the ends of antennæ to pioneer for the head, or pinched up into tubercles at the corners of the lips. But how do the creatures see out of all these eyes?

108. No business of ours, you may think? Pardon me. This is no Siren's question--this is altogether business of ours, lest, perchance, any of us should see partly in the same manner. Comparative sight is a far more important question than comparative anatomy. It is no matter, though we sometimes walk--and it may often be desirable to climb--like apes; but suppose we only _see_ like apes, or like lower creatures? I can tell you, the science of optics is an essential one to us; for exactly according to these infinitely grotesque directions and multiplications of instrument you have correspondent, not only intellectual but moral, faculty in the soul of the creatures. Literally, if the eye be pure, the body is pure; but, if the light of the body be but darkness, how great is that darkness!

109. Have you ever looked attentively at the study I gave you of the head of the rattle-snake? The serpent will keep its eyes fixed on you for an hour together, a vertical slit in each admitting such image of you as is possible to the rattlesnake retina, and to the rattlesnake mind. How much of you do you think it sees? I ask that, first, as a pure physical question. I do not know; it is not my business to know. You, from your schools of physical science, should bring me answer. How much of a man can a snake see? What sort of image of him is received through that deadly vertical cleft in the iris;--through the glazed blue of the ghastly lens? Make me a picture of the appearance of a man, as far as you can judge it can take place on the snake's retina. Then ask yourselves, farther, how much of speculation is possible to the snake, touching this human aspect?

110. Or, if that seem too far beneath possible inquiry, how say you of a tiger's eye, or a cat's? A cat may look at a king;--yes; but can it _see_ a king when it looks at him? The beasts of prey never seem to me to _look_, in our sense, at all. Their eyes are fascinated by the motion of anything, as a kitten's by a ball;--they fasten, as if drawn by an inevitable attraction, on their food. But when a cat caresses you, it never looks at you. Its heart seems to be in its back and paws, not its eyes. It will rub itself against you, or pat you with velvet tufts, instead of talons; but you may talk to it an hour together, yet not rightly catch its eye. Ascend higher in the races of being--to the fawn, the dog, the horse; you will find that, according to the clearness of sight, is indeed the kindness of sight, and that at last the noble eyes of humanity look through humanity, from heart into heart, and with no mechanical vision. And the Light of the body is the eye--yes, and in happy life, the light of the heart also.

111. But now note farther: there is a mathematical power in the eye which may far transcend its moral power. When the moral power is feeble, the faculty of measurement, or of distinct delineation, may be supreme; and of comprehension none. But here, again, I want the help of the physical science schools. I believe the eagle has no scent, and hunts by sight, yet flies higher than any other bird. Now, I want to know what the appearance is to an eagle, two thousand feet up, of a sparrow in a hedge, or of a partridge in a stubble-field. What kind of definition on the retina do these brown spots take to manifest themselves as signs of a thing eatable; and if an eagle sees a partridge so, does it see everything else so? And then tell me, farther, does it see only a square yard at a time, and yet, as it flies, take summary of the square yards beneath it? When next you are travelling by express sixty miles an hour, past a grass bank, try to see a grasshopper, and you will get some idea of an eagle's optical business, if it takes only the line of ground underneath it. Does it take more?

112. Then, besides this faculty of clear vision, you have to consider the faculty of metric vision. Neither an eagle, nor a kingfisher, nor any other darting bird, can see things with both their eyes at the same time as completely as you and I can; but think of their faculty of measurement as compared with ours! You will find that it takes you months of labour before you can acquire accurate power, even of _deliberate_ estimate of distances with the eye; it is one of the points to which, most of all, I have to direct your work. And the curious thing is that, given the degree of practice, you will measure ill or well with the eye in proportion to the quantity of life in you. No one can measure with a glance, when they are tired. Only the other day I got half an inch out of a foot, in drawing merely a coat of arms, because I was tired. But fancy what would happen to a swallow, if _it_ was half an inch out in a foot, in flying round a corner!

113. Well, that is the first branch of the questions which we want answered by optical science;--the actual distortion, contraction, and other modification, of the sight of different animals, as far as it can be known from the forms of their eyes. Then, secondly, we ourselves need to be taught the connection of the sense of colour with health; the difference in the physical conditions which lead us to seek for gloom, or brightness of hue; and the nature of purity in colour, first in the object seen, and then in the eye which prefers it.

* * * * *

(The portion of lecture here omitted referred to illustrations of vulgarity and delicacy in colour, showing that the vulgar colours, even when they seemed most glaring, were in reality impure and dull; and destroyed each other by contention; while noble colour, intensely bright and pure, was nevertheless entirely governed and calm, so that every colour bettered and aided all the rest.)

114. You recollect how I urged you in my opening course of lectures rather to work in the school of crystalline colour than in that of shade.

Since I gave that first course of lectures, my sense of the necessity of this study of brightness primarily, and of purity and gaiety beyond all other qualities, has deeply been confirmed by the influence which the unclean horror and impious melancholy of the modern French school--most literally the school of death--has gained over the popular mind. I will not dwell upon the evil phrenzy to-day. But it is in order, at once to do the best I can, in counteraction of its deadly influence, though not without other and constant reasons, that I give you heraldry, with all its splendour and its pride, its brightness of colour, and honourableness of meaning, for your main elementary practice.

115. To-day I have only time left to press on your thoughts the deeper law of this due joy in colour and light.

On any morning of the year, how many pious supplications, do you suppose, are uttered throughout educated Europe for "light"? How many lips at least pronounce the word, and, perhaps, in the plurality of instances, with some distinct idea attached to it? It is true the speakers employ it only as a metaphor. But why is their language thus metaphorical? If they mean merely to ask for spiritual knowledge or guidance, why not say so plainly, instead of using this jaded figure of speech? No boy goes to his father when he wants to be taught, or helped, and asks his father to give him 'light.' He asks what he wants, advice or protection. Why are not we also content to ask our Father for what we want, in plain English?

The metaphor, you will answer, is put into our mouths, and felt to be a beautiful and necessary one.

I admit it. In your educational series, first of all examples of modern art, is the best engraving I could find of the picture which, founded on that idea of Christ's being the Giver of Light, contains, I believe, the most true and useful piece of religious vision which realistic art has yet embodied. But why is the metaphor so necessary, or, rather, how far is it a metaphor at all? Do you think the words 'Light of the World' mean only 'Teacher or Guide of the World'? When the Sun of Justice is said to rise with health in its wings, do you suppose the image only means the correction of error? Or does it even mean so much? The Light of Heaven is needed to do that perfectly. But what we are to pray for is the Light of the _World_; nay, the Light "that lighteth _every man that cometh into the world_."

116. You will find that it is no metaphor--nor has it ever been so.

To the Persian, the Greek, and the Christian, the sense of the power of the God of Light has been one and the same. That power is not merely in teaching or protecting, but in the enforcement of purity of body, and of equity or justice in the heart; and this, observe, not heavenly purity, nor final justice; but, now, and here, actual purity in the midst of the world's foulness,--practical justice in the midst of the world's iniquity. And the physical strength of the organ of sight,--the physical purity of the flesh, the actual love of sweet light and stainless colour,--are the necessary signs, real, inevitable, and visible, of the prevailing presence, with any nation, or in any house, of the "Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

117. _Physical_ purity;--actual love of sweet light, and of fair colour. This is one palpable sign, and an entirely needful one, that we have got what we pretend to pray for every morning. That, you will find, is the meaning of Apollo's war with the Python--of your own St. George's war with the dragon. You have got that battle stamped again on every sovereign in your pockets, but do you think the sovereigns are helping, at this instant, St. George in his battle? Once, on your gold of the Henrys' times, you had St. Michael and the dragon, and called your coins 'angels.' How much have they done lately, of angelic work, think you, in purifying the earth?

118. Purifying, literally, purging and cleansing. That is the first "sacred art" all men have to learn. And the words I deferred to the close of this lecture, about the proposed improvements in Oxford, are very few. Oxford is, indeed, capable of much improvement, but only by undoing the greater part of what has been done to it within the last twenty years; and, at present, the one thing that I would say to well-meaning persons is, 'For Heaven's sake--literally for Heaven's sake--let the place alone, and clean it.' I walked last week to Iffley--not having been there for thirty years. I did not know the church inside; I found it pitch-dark with painted glass of barbarous manufacture, and the old woman who showed it infinitely proud of letting me in at the front door instead of the side one. But close by it, not fifty yards down the hill, there was a little well--a holy well it should have been; beautiful in the recess of it, and the lovely ivy and weeds above it, had it but been cared for in a human way; but so full of frogs that you could not have dipped a cup in it without catching one.

What is the use of pretty painted glass in your churches when you have the plagues of Egypt outside of them?

119. I walked back from Iffley to Oxford by what was once the most beautiful approach to an academical city of any in Europe. Now it is a wilderness of obscure and base buildings. You think it a fine thing to go into Iffley church by the front door;--and you build cheap lodging-houses over all the approach to the chief university of English literature! That, forsooth, is your luminous cloister, and porch of Polygnotus to your temple of Apollo. And in the centre of that temple, at the very foot of the dome of the Radclyffe, between two principal colleges, the lane by which I walked from my own college half an hour ago, to this place,--Brasen-nose Lane--is left in a state as loathsome as a back-alley in the East end of London.

120. These, I suppose, are the signs of extending liberality, and disseminated advantages of education.

Gentlemen, if, as was lately said by a leading member of your Government, the function of a university be only to examine, it may indeed examine the whole mob of England in the midst of a dunghill; but it cannot teach the gentlemen of England in the midst of a dunghill; no, nor even the people of England. How many of her people it _ought_ to teach is a question. We think, now-a-days, our philosophy is to light every man that cometh into the world, and to light every man equally. Well, when indeed you give up all other commerce in this island, and, as in Bacon's "New Atlantis," only buy and sell to get God's first creature, which was light, there may be some equality of gain for us in that possession. But until then,--and we are very far from such a time--the light cannot be given to all men equally. Nay, it is becoming questionable whether, instead of being equally distributed to all, it may not be equally withdrawn from us all: whether the ideas of purity and justice,--of loveliness which is to sanctify our peace,--and of justice which is to sanctify our battle, are not vanishing from the purpose of our policy, and even from the conception of our education.

The uses, and the desire, of seclusion, of meditation, of restraint, and of correction--are they not passing from us in the collision of worldly interests, and restless contests of mean hope, and meaner fear? What light, what health, what peace, or what security,--youths of England--do you come here now to seek? In what sense do you receive--with what sincerity do you adopt for yourselves--the ancient legend of your schools, "Dominus illuminatio mea, et salus mea; quem timebo"?

121. Remember that the ancient theory on which this university was founded,--not the theory of any one founder, observe, nor even the concluded or expressed issue of the wisdom of many; but the tacit feeling by which the work and hope of all were united and completed--was, that England should gather from among her children a certain number of purest and best, whom she might train to become, each in their day of strength, her teachers and patterns in religion, her declarers and doers of justice in law and her leaders in battle. Bred, it might be, by their parents, in the fond poverty of learning, or amidst the traditions and discipline of illustrious houses,--in either manner separate, from their youth up, to their glorious offices--they came here to be kindled into the lights that were to be set on the hills of England, brightest of the pious, the loyal, and the brave. Whatever corruption blighted, whatever worldliness buried, whatever sin polluted their endeavour, this conception of its meaning remained; and was indeed so fulfilled in faithfulness, that to the men whose passions were tempered, and whose hearts confirmed, in the calm of these holy places, you, now living, owe all that is left to you of hope in heaven, and all of safety or honour that you have to trust and defend on earth.

Their children have forfeited, some by guilt, and many in folly, the leadership they inherited; and every man in England now is to do and to learn what is right in his own eyes. How much need, therefore, that we should learn first of all what eyes are; and what vision they ought to possess--science of sight granted only to clearness of soul; but granted in its fulness even to mortal eyes: for though, after the skin, worms may destroy their body, happy the pure in heart, for they, yet in their flesh, shall see the Light of Heaven, and know the will of God.

LECTURE VII.

THE RELATION TO ART OF THE SCIENCES OF INORGANIC FORM.

_February 9th, 1872._

122. I did not wish in my last lecture, after I had directed your attention to the special bearing of some of the principles I pleaded for, to enforce upon you any farther general conclusions. But it is necessary now to collect the gist of what I endeavoured to show you respecting the organs of sight; namely, that in proportion to the physical perfectness or clearness of them is the degree in which they are raised from the perception of prey to the perception of beauty and of affection. The imperfect and brutal instrument of the eye may be vivid with malignity, or wild with hunger, or manifoldly detective with microscopic exaggeration, assisting the ingenuity of insects with a multiplied and permanent monstrosity of all things round them; but the noble human sight, careless of prey, disdainful of minuteness, and reluctant to anger, becomes clear in gentleness, proud in reverence, and joyful in love. And finally, the physical splendour of light and colour, so far from being the perception of a mechanical force by a mechanical instrument, is an entirely spiritual consciousness, accurately and absolutely proportioned to the purity of the moral nature, and to the force of its natural and wise affections.

123. That was the sum of what I wished to show you in my last lecture; and observe, that what remains to me doubtful in these things,--and it is much--I do not trouble you with. Only what I know that on experiment you can ascertain for yourselves, I tell you, and illustrate, for the time, as well as I can. Experiments in art are difficult, and take years to try; you may at first fail in them, as you might in a chemical analysis; but in all the matters which in this place I shall urge on your attention I can assure you of the final results.

That, then, being the sum of what I could tell you with certainty respecting the methods of sight, I have next to assure you that this faculty of sight, disciplined and pure, is the only proper faculty which the graphic artist is to use in his inquiries into nature. His office is to show her appearances; his duty is to know them. It is not his duty, though it may be sometimes for his convenience, while it is always at his peril, that he knows more;--knows the _causes_ of appearances, or the essence of the things that produce them.

124. Once again, therefore, I must limit my application of the word science with respect to art. I told you that I did not mean by 'science' such knowledge as that triangles on equal bases and between parallels are equal, but such knowledge as that the stars in Cassiopeia are in the form of a _W_. But, farther still, it is not to be considered as science, for an artist, that they are stars at all. What _he_ has to know is that they are luminous points which twinkle in a certain manner, and are pale yellow, or deep yellow, and may be quite deceptively imitated at a certain distance by brass-headed nails. This he ought to know, and to remember accurately, and his art knowledge--the science, that is to say--of which his art is to be the reflection, is the sum of knowledges of this sort; his memory of the look of the sun and moon at such and such times, through such and such clouds; his memory of the look of the mountains,--of the look of sea,--of the look of human faces.

125. Perhaps you would not call that 'science' at all. It is no matter what either you or I call it. It _is_ science of a certain order of facts. Two summers ago, looking from Verona at sunset, I saw the mountains beyond the Lago di Garda of a strange blue, vivid and rich like the bloom of a damson. I never saw a mountain-blue of that particular quality before or since. My science as an artist consists in my knowing that sort of blue from every other sort, and in my perfect recollection that this particular blue had such and such a green associated with it in the near fields. I have nothing whatever to do with the atmospheric causes of the colour: that knowledge would merely occupy my brains wastefully, and warp my artistic attention and energy from their point. Or to take a simpler instance yet: Turner, in his early life, was sometimes good-natured, and would show people what he was about. He was one day making a drawing of Plymouth harbour, with some ships at the distance of a mile or two, seen against the light. Having shown this drawing to a naval officer, the naval officer observed with surprise, and objected with very justifiable indignation, that the ships of the line had no port-holes. "No," said Turner, "certainly not. If you will walk up to Mount Edgecumbe, and look at the ships against the sunset, you will find you can't see the port-holes." "Well, but," said the naval officer, still indignant, "you know the port-holes are there." "Yes," said Turner, "I know that well enough; but my business is to draw what I see, and not what I know is there."